The Vampire Diaries Recap and Review S8Ep14: ‘It’s Been a Hell of a Ride’

What the actual. eff. just happened… Guess the Mystic Falls overlords finally realized how weak of a bad guy THE DEVIL was and had to go and retcon the shows only decent bad guys to somehow make the last two episodes, after this, pack a powerful punch!

Starting from where we left a semi-dead Damon last week, Cade enters the picture to have a nice little chat. He knows the vampire squad has the dagger, and that he can also make a deal with the Salvatores because Kai handed over Elena’s body. Damon is having none of it and so we as viewers switch back over to the land of the living (quite literally) and are faced with Stefan, finally having made it to Bonnie’s house, trying to apologize. He’s back on his atonement bandwagon, another one of Stefan’s well thought out ideas (sarcasm). Bonnie is his first stop and it goes over about as well as you would assume. For not being a huge fan of Bonnie Bennett throughout the series, her IDGaF attitude has been pretty great. She maintains it when she’s happy (essentially ignoring the others dumb ideas until they’re useful) and it’s there when someone makes her mad and she won’t let them get any of the pity they so desperately crave. You’d have thought Stefan would have grown a little more throughout the series, even since he has become one now.

Stefan’s Mystic Falls defection is cut short, however, when Damon lets him know that Cade has Elena’s body. Though having lost Elena’s body isn’t the worse part. When Kai turned her over, he also kept an ace up his sleeve. So the Salvatore brothers have to band together and face off both of these bad guys to get Elena back.

Also, explaining to your kids why they can’t wear the pretty dresses on mommies special day, is an extra sad level of a breakup. Especially made worse when the girls throw a tantrum and light a blanket on fire.

I have missed Chris Wood on this show sooo much! Kai singing KARAOKE…his “literal mic drop” is making these last episodes amazing….even better that he has social media accounts and that’s how every keeps tracking him down. Plus, since he’s a bad guy he also has a Yelp account. When the brothers appear for one of Kai’s songs it’s also really easy to figure out what he has over Cade (the dagger) and pretty easy to get it away from him (snapping his neck). Kai was never one for subtlety, it was always his downfall. At least he goes out in style; with giggles and recriminations.

He’s still around, though, a little unconscious, but mostly the brothers drag him to the Armory so that he can get locked up. Of course he still somehow overhears everyone’s conversations and pipes up when it comes to the Gemini Coven Twins, who are suddenly acting all weird. Thankfully, he’s locked up for now and Alaric has been given the honor of sending him back to hell, once they’re done with Cade. But there’s one catch and he tells Caroline whats up with the girls; they’re in the Armory which is full of magical artifacts. Witches will siphon any magic when surrounded by so much. So Kai sticks around long enough to explain that they brought a Siphon to the worst possible place, and he breaks out by Siphoning magic from the walls.

Stefan really hasn’t grown at all this series…so he thinks he’s the only one who can kill Cade. When he and Damon go off to meet up with the Devil, he’s willing to go off all gung ho to kill Cade and in the process risk Elena and his brother. He also knocks out Damon so he can’t be stopped. His plan is a little shaky, but a tad better than expected. He has Alaric ring the bell to weaken him, and he tries to stab him with the dagger. However, Kai escaping distracts Alaric from helping and Cade overpowers Stefan.

In the end, Damon walks through the cave entrance and tells Cade that he got what he wanted, so now he has to pony up. Aka returns Elena. Cade has something up his sleeve though and with an injured Stefan at his disposal he makes Damon choose; either he can have Elena (whose coffin Cade lit on fire) or he can have Stefan, but he can’t have both. This moment is definitely in the top three defining moments for Damon as a character. It may not seem like much at the time, but Damon’s decision is himself. The shows quintessential selfish character decides without hesitation that he is willing to sacrifice himself to save both the girl he loves and the brother he loves, instead of being painfully torn between them. This is when the show makes me the believe the whole it was about the redemption and growth of Damon Salvatore and no one else. An even more startling aspect in this moment is that he has to kill himself so that Cade can take his soul, and he has to do it with a piece of Elena’s coffin. So Damon in one of his most defining moments impales himself on a stake and slips over to the other side.

Luckily for everyone, when Cade lit Elena’s coffin on fire he alerted Bonnie to where he was. Because as she tells Enzo, he’s not the only one she has a psychic connection to. Even though she is too late to help Damon, she’s not too late to help him on the other side. So, Bonnie goes head to head against Cade trying to prevent him from reaping Damon’s soul. Oh, boy does she fight! It may only be on their faces, but it’s nice to see Bonnie use some inkling of magic again. In the midst of all of this Stefan gets out of the cave with the dagger in hand and stabs Cade through the chest. Guess when you’re busy in a psychic mind battle with another psychic you don’t really pay attention to the puny human with the only dagger in existence that can kill you…WHOOPS!

Ding dong the Devil’s dead!!!!!!!!!!!

But…..Turns out hell didn’t go with him! Kai only convinced everyone that it would so that maybe one day he could run it. he was in CAHOOTS with someone else in Hell…as he tells Bonnie once she locks him back up in his own private prison world. A karaoke prison world that only plays his least favorite song…ohh the horror!!!!!

Turns out someone else has taken control of hell now that Cade is gone. One that knows everyone’s weaknesses and hates them more than anyone else….You may have guessed it “The baddest B**** of them all…..KATHERINE!”

So even though we have seen two major baddies this season, who were pretty damn lackluster, it seems the all powerful writers believe bringing back out favorite bad guys in these last few episode will give us the ending we all hope for! Also, easy way to bring back Nina Dobrev without actually waking up Elena…ooooohhhhh that would suck at the ending!

Episode extras:

Alaric beating the hell out of Kai with a mace was literally perfection!

Alaric wanting to start his own magical Hogwarts, is also perfection….CAN THIS BE A SPIN OFF!?!?!?!?!?!?

MATT DAVIS NEEDS A SPIN OFF!!!!

Stefan re-proposed, effectively re-growing man-bits and sucking it up and realizing just maybe he should talk to others before making life choices that affect everyone!

Dash Wilder

Dash Wilder is a contributor at Legion of Leia and one of the crazier member of the HD1Jump team. A gaming and news community found at @HD1Jump. She games ever obsessively over Bioshock and Mass Effect during the day, and slings drinks for Geeks and Gamers at night.